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spk00: Greetings and welcome to the Meritage Homes second quarter 2024 analyst call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Emily Tadano. Vice President of Investor Relations and ESG. Thank you. You may begin.
spk08: Thank you, operator. Good morning and welcome to our analyst call to discuss our second quarter 2024 results. We issued the press release yesterday after the market closed. You can find it along with the slides we'll refer to during this call on our website at investors.meritagehomes.com or by selecting the investor relations link at the bottom of our homepage. Please refer to slide two, cautioning you that our statements during this call, as well as in the earnings release and accompanying slides, contain forward-looking statements. Those and any other projections represent the current opinions of management, which are subject to change at any time, and we assume no obligation to update them. Any forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain. Our actual results may be materially different than our expectations due to a wide variety of risk factors which we have identified and listed on this slide, as well as in our earnings release and most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically our 2023 annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent 10-Qs. We have also provided a reconciliation of certain non-GAAP financial measures referred to in our earnings release as compared to their closest related GAAP measures. With us today to discuss our results are Steve Hilton, Executive Chairman, Philippe Lord, CEO, and Helus Ferruza, Executive Vice President and CFO of Meritage Homes. We expect today's call to last about an hour. A replay will be available on our website later today. I'll now turn it over to Mr. Hilton.
spk04: Steve? Thank you, Emily. Welcome to everyone listening in on our call. I'll start with a brief discussion covering current market conditions and some of our recent company milestones. Philippe will highlight how our strategy is progressing and its impact on our quarterly performance. and he will provide a financial overview of the second quarter and forward-looking guidance. Q2 was another strong quarter for Meritage. Our products and price points are targeted at the largest segments of homebuyer demand, which drove a solid spring selling season for us, leading to an average absorption pace of 4.5 sales per month this quarter and our highest second quarter sales orders of 3,799 homes. In the second quarter of 2024, our backlog conversion of 136% generated 4,118 home deliveries and home closing revenue of $1.7 billion. Home closing gross margin for the quarter was 25.9%, which combined with SG&A leverage of 9.3%, resulting in diluted EPS of $6.31. As of June 30, 2024, we increased our book value per share 16%, year over year to $134.41 and generated a return on equity of 18.3%. Now on to slide four for our recent milestones. We were truly honored to receive a wide range of recognition in the second quarter. It reflects our corporate stewardship. We are in the prestigious Avid Cup for the third consecutive year, the highest accolade presented to a builder for exceptional customer satisfaction scores. We once again celebrate our longstanding partnership with the EPA, accepting the Market Leader Award for certified homes for the 11th time. We were also one of three builders named America's Climate Leaders by USA Today. And lastly, U.S. News and World Report added us to the list of the 2024-25 best companies to work for. We are proud to be recognized externally for our social sustainability initiatives. And with that, I'll now turn it over to Philippe. Thank you, Steve.
spk05: During the second quarter, we hosted two investor day calls to introduce the evolution of our business model. Over the past seven to eight years, we have migrated to a lower ASP spec strategy while streamlining operations to yield efficiencies. Now, we are once again continuing to refine our strategy by taking the home to a near completion stage before releasing it for sale, basically approximating the just-in-time home inventory structure that exists in the resale market. This strategy evolution is built on three new core tenets. a 60-day closing guarantee, the concept of move-in-ready homes, and a focus on deepening our realtor relationships. These tenets allow us to target the biggest piece of the potential homebuyer pool by effectively competing its resale inventory, not just in today's environment that favors builders, but also when the resale market returns to historical averages. Our strong second quarter 24 financial performances financial performance validated that the shift to focus on quick-turn, move-in-ready homes is the right one for us and attractive offering for our customers. We will continue to build affordable entry-level and first-move-up product, but now we will be focused on buyers who want to move into the home in 60 days and typically have already engaged with a broker. Our new strategy enabled us to exceed expectations this quarter by achieving a higher absorption pace than our target and year-over-year increase in home closings and gross margins. Now turning to slide six, demand remains solid throughout the spring selling season. Our sales orders of 3,799 homes for the second quarter of 2024 were up 14% year-over-year. The cancellation rate of 10% remained below our historical average in the mid-teens. Entry-level homes comprised 92% of total orders volume. ASP on orders this quarter of $414,000 was down 6% from prior year due to a larger mix of our orders coming from both our eastern markets and entry-level homes. Sequentially, we increased ASP on orders as we were able to take price increases in some of the stronger submarkets. The strength and demand for our move-in-ready product and our continued use of finance incentives generated a second quarter 2024 average absorption pace of 4.5 net sales per month. above our target average annual sales pace of four net sales per month. Aligning with seasonal patterns, we would expect the second part of the year to experience a slower sales pace through the summer months and into the holiday season. Although we're seeing a return to more typical sales seasonality, we do believe that the demand environment will remain constructive for the rest of the year. This resiliency stems from favorable demographics, below average resale listings in many of our markets, and a fundamental underbuilt supply of homes, all of which create an opportunity for us to increase our market share despite ongoing mortgage rate volatility. The second quarter 2024 ending continuing out of 287 was up 4% sequentially from the first quarter of 2024 and down 1% compared to prior year. 35 new communities came online this quarter, similar to what we opened up in Q1. For the second half of this year, we anticipate additional net community account growth and a more meaningful double digit increase in 2025. We now own and control all the locks we need for planned community openings in 2024 and 2025 and most of 2026. Moving to the regional level trends on slide six. All of our regions achieved an average absorption pace exceeding our target of 4.0 net sales per month and year-over-year growth in orders volume this quarter. The central region comprised of our Texas markets had the highest regional average absorption pace of 4.7 net sales per month and an average quarterly backlog conversion rate that has exceeded our targeted 125% for the last three quarters. Even as the resale home supply has increased in some Texas submarkets, our move-in ready homes effectively completed against this inventory. With nearly 30% completed specs inventory in the region, we believe we have the right available product to continue to increase our market share. The West region experienced the largest year-over-year growth in average absorption pace to 4.4 net sales per month in Q2 from 3.4 net sales per month from last year. We are seeing strength in Arizona, where we achieved five-plus net sales per month this quarter. With strong year-over-year growth in Speckhound in the west, we expect to be able to continue meeting the high demand in this region. The east region had an average absorption pace of 4.4 net sales per month and the largest regional year-over-year increase in sales orders, making the east our largest region based on sales order volume, even as retail inventory more noticeably returned in some submarkets in South Florida. We are poised to continue competing aggressively for market share here as our east region exhibits the strongest regional growth year-over-year in any community count and spec inventory in the second quarter of 2024. Now turning to slide seven. As we align our start pace with our sales pace, we started about 4,300 homes this quarter. We were up about 5% both sequentially and year-over-year, replenishing our pipelines. With our anticipated community count growth in the next six months, we expect to start more homes to maintain our targeted four to six-month supply per community across our growing footprint. As we have discussed in the past, our strategy is agile. So, if we do see any pullback in the markets in the coming quarters, we will adjust our spec starts accordingly. We had approximately 6,500 spec homes in inventory as of June 30, 2024, up 46 percent from about 4,500 specs as of June 30, 2023. This represented 23 specs per community this quarter, between a four- to five-month supply spec based on absorptions. Over time, under the new strategy, our percentage of complete WIP should increase slightly to ensure we have the right inventory to meet our 60-day closing guarantee. Of our homes closing this quarter, 96% came from previously started inventory, up from 87% in the prior year. 26% of total specs were completed as of June 3, 2024, closer to our goal of carrying one-third move-in-ready homes. With our focus on quick-turning inventory, our inter-quarter sales to closing percentage was just above 40% this quarter. Our ending backlog continues to decline intentionally from about 3,800 as of June 30, 2023, to approximately 2,700 homes as of June 30, 2024. We expect this trend to stabilize once we are delivering 60-day move-in ready homes in all of our communities. With our backlog and specs on the ground, together totaling over 9,200 homes, We believe we have the optimal level of inventory for the current demand environment. I will now turn it over to Hila to walk through our financial results. Hila?
spk09: Thank you, Philippe. Before we get started, I'd like to share that earlier this week, Moody's upgraded us to investment grade. We're excited to now be holding IG ratings from all three of our readers. It's been humbling to see third parties recognize our efforts over the last several years to strengthen our balance sheet while producing exceptional results. and we believe the benefit of these upgrades will continue to positively impact our financial performance. Now let's turn to slide 8 and cover our Q2 results in more detail. Second quarter 2024 home closing revenue was $1.7 billion, reflecting 18% higher home closing volume year-over-year that was partially offset by 7% lower ASP due to product and geographic mix. In addition to select price increases, the cost related to rate locks decreased slightly, both year over year and sequentially from the first quarter, even as the utilization of these financing incentives increased with recent volatility in interest rates. As we look to the second half of the year, we anticipate a slower monthly absorption pace due to seasonality and corresponding lower closing volume compared to the first half of the year, reflecting the seasonality and our higher backlog conversion resulting in the delivery of the majority of our spring selling season orders during the first half of the year. Home closing gross margin increased 150 bps to 25.9% in the second quarter of 2024, compared to 24.4% in the prior year. This improvement was a combination of lower direct costs, greater leverage of fixed expenses on higher revenue, and shorter construction cycle times, which were partially offset by higher lot costs. Lower direct costs benefited from both market dynamics and our purchasing team's ongoing pursuit of cost reductions since direct cost peaks in Q1 of last year. We are also securing volume discounts from trade partners based on our increased deliveries. We expect to see continued savings in lumber and lumber-related products in the coming quarter, and labor capacity continues to hold steady. Further, our construction cycle times improved about 10 days from Q1 to Q2, to around 130 calendar days, which helps us turn our home inventory faster. We're closing in on our historical average of about 120 calendar day cycle time, which would allow us to turn our WIP inventory three times a year. As a reminder, although our land costs are more elevated as compared to 2023, we have already turned over the majority of our communities from pre-COVID land. So the higher cost lots are not expected to have a material pullback on our margins beyond the current levels. Turning to SG&A. SG&A as a percentage of second quarter 2024 home closing revenue of 9.3% improved 30 bps from 9.6% in the second quarter of 2023, primarily due to the better leverage achieved on higher home closing revenue. It's important to note that this quarter, total commissions as a percentage of home closing revenue were flat year over year. Specifically, external commission rates were essentially the same in Q2 2023 despite our higher COBRA participation as our strategic relationships reduced the need for ad hoc bonuses and incentives. We continue to see the proof in our results that our new strategy of aligning with realtors is working and proving profitable. We expect commissions as a percentage of home closing revenue to remain relatively steady for the rest of the year. As we've mentioned several times today, given our strategic evolution, the first two quarters of the year will likely be the strongest revenue quarters, leading to the most leverage in our SG&A in the first half. With that in mind, we are still maintaining our full year SG&A guidance of 10% or better. Longer term, we're targeting 9.5% SG&A as a percentage of home closing revenue as we grow our existing markets and leverage our overhead platform to reach our goal of 20,000 units in the next three to four years. In the second quarter of 2024, the financial services profit of $4.8 million included $2 million of write-offs related to rate lock unwind costs. This compared to financial services loss of 2.6M in the second quarter of 2023 that had 7.9M in similar write-offs. The second quarter's effective income tax rate was 22.1% this year, essentially flat the prior year with both periods benefiting from energy tax credits on qualifying homes under the Inflation Reduction Act. Overall, higher home closing revenue and gross profit coupled with greater SG&A leverage led to 26% year-over-year increase in second quarter 2024 diluted EPS to $6.31 from $5.02 in 2023. To highlight just a few results from the first half of 2024, on a year-over-year basis, orders were up 14%, closings were up 19%, and our home closing revenue increased 13% to $3.2 billion. We had a 240 BIP improvement in home closing gross margin to 25.9%. SG&A as a percentage of home closing revenue was 9.8%, and net earnings increased 31% to $418 million with $11.37 in diluted EPS. Before we move on to the balance sheet, I wanted to cover our Q2 2024 customer's credit metrics. As expected, our buyer profile remained relatively consistent with our historical averages, with FICO scores in the mid-730s and DTIs around 4142. LTVs were still in the mid-80s, and about 80% of our buyers in Q2 received some sort of financing incentive consistent with our mortgage company capture rate. Now turning to slide 9. This quarter, we successfully enhanced our capital structure. We issued $575 million in new 1.75% convertible debt due 2028. Part of the proceeds from the convert went to pay down the remaining $250 million of senior notes due 2025. The incremental cash from the convertible notes increased our available sources for land spend, dividends, and share repurchases. We also refinanced our revolving credit facility to increase the facility size to $910 million extending its maturity date from 2028 to 2029, and reducing its pricing grade to align with our investment grade rating. We had nothing drawn on our credit facility, cash of $993 million, and net debt to cap of 6.2% as of June 30, 2024. Our net debt to cap maximum ceiling continues to be in the mid-20s range, leveraging our improved backlog conversion and quicker cash generation. We utilize 118 million operating cash flows during the second quarter of 2024, primarily related to land acquisition and development. On to slide 10. Our capital allocation was focused on organic growth and cash dividends this quarter to enhance shareholder value. This quarter, we spent about $631 million on land acquisition and development, which was up 54% from prior year. On a year-to-date basis, Our land spend has totaled $1.1 billion as of June 30, 2024. With the exception of a small pullback in late 2022, we have been accelerating our investment in organic growth for the past several years. We expect our go-forward trend in 2024 and beyond to be $2 to $2.5 billion of land spent annually. As we nearly tripled our quarterly cash dividend on a year-over-year basis, to 75 cents per share in 2024 from 27 cents per share in 2023, our cash dividend totaled $27.2 million in the second quarter of the year and $54.5 million on a year-to-date basis. Due to the convertible notes issuance, we were unable to repurchase any shares in the second quarter as we were bound by the customary lockout provision that will lift at the end of the day today. Share buybacks are integral to our capital allocation policy, so we plan to double up on our systematic quarterly commitment in Q2 to catch up. For the first half of 2024, the company repurchased over 362,000 shares of stock, totaling $55.9 million. 129.1 million remain available under our authorization program as of June 30, 2024. Turning to slide 11. We secured and put over 8,700 net new lots under control this quarter, representing an estimated 63 future communities. We put around 2,800 net new lots under control in the second quarter of 2023. As of June 30, 2024, we owned or controlled a total of about 71,000 lots, equating to a 4.7 year supply in line with our target of four to five years. We continue to utilize more option financing for land deals ranging from traditional land banking to seller tranche deals with the underlying sellers. About 66% of our total lot inventory in June 30, 2024 was owned and 34% was optioned compared to prior year. We had a 76% owned inventory and a 24% option lot position. We own 69% and option 31% of our loss at March 31st, 2024. We are comfortable with our off-balance sheet land ratio up to 40%. Since off-balance sheet transactions come with a financing cost, we are going to use them as needed while balancing our other capital commitments. Finally, I'll direct you to slide 12 for our guidance. Given current market conditions, we have revised our full year projections higher to the following. total closings between 14,750 and 15,500 units, home closing revenue of 6.1 to 6.3 billion, home closing gross margin around 24.5 to 25%, and effective tax rate of about 22.5%, and diluted EPS in the range of $19.80 to $21 flat. As of Q3 2024, as for Q3 2024, we are projecting total closings between 3,650 to 3,850 units, home closing revenue of 1.5 to 1.6 billion, home closing gross margin of 23.5 to 24%, an effective tax rate of about 22.5%, and diluted EPS in the range of $4.60 to $5.05. Both Q3 and full-year guidance assume current market conditions and interest rates. With that, I'll turn it over to Salif. Thank you, Hila.
spk05: To summarize on slide 13, our second quarter 2024 results demonstrate that our new focus on quick-turning, move-in-ready inventory is leading to strength in our absorption pace, home closing volume, and home closing gross margin. With our strong balance sheet, we can continue to execute our strategic evolution and create long-term value by investing in our growth on the path to 20,000 units while also returning cash to shareholders. With that, I will now turn the call over to the operator for instructions on the Q&A. Operator?
spk00: Thank you. And at this time, we'll conduct our question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment while we pull for questions.
spk02: Our first question comes from Alan Ratner with Zellman and Associates.
spk00: Please state your question.
spk15: Hey, guys. Good morning. Congrats on the great performance and what seems like a lot of success so far in the strategy pivot or evolution here. I was hoping to drill in a little bit, though, to the gross margin guide. I know you've walked through in a lot of detail back in your investor meetings a month or two ago, kind of your outlook there longer term, and I think your expectation for some normalization makes a lot of sense and generally is in line with our expectations. But I'm a bit curious if you could drill in a little bit what's driving the sequential pressure specifically in the back half of this year. I think we've heard from some other builders that expect more of a flattish margin environment, and it seems like your incentives right now are fairly stable. So why the significant leg lower in the second half following a much stronger than expected second quarter?
spk09: Thanks, Alan. This is Hila. I'll take it, and then Philippe can jump in with any additional commentary. So I think that the sequential decline, I know there's been a lot of questions and thoughts about it kind of pre-earnings this morning. It's mostly a function of two things, maybe a function of three things. The first is geographic mix, right? We have some diversity in margin performance across our market, so it's a little bit of geographic mix. A second part of it is volume, right? There's some leveraging in the fixed components of overhead with the heavy closing volume now shifting to Q1 and Q2 for us from Q3 and Q4. We're going to see some slightly reduced leveraging in the fixed components. of gross margin, and then incentives continue to be utilized. There's been a lot of volatility in the market over the last six weeks. Those closings are the ones that we're really going to see in Q3, and we're continuing to see as we sell homes in July. So it's really the function of those three things. There's nothing different structurally or fundamentally in the market. The market strength is holding in there. It's pretty much the same. It's really just mixed and leveraging in the overhead component.
spk05: Yeah, and this is Philippe. I'll just add, you know, from the beginning, when we budget our business, we expected seasonality return to the market this year. So we still expect that. We're here in July. And so, you know, we think that we will probably have to use more incentives in the back half of the year to acquire those sales. Those are in our original budget. We've had to use less in the first half of this year, but we're still expecting to use more in the back half of the year.
spk15: Got it. Okay. So that is very helpful. And I guess, you know, circling that back to the upside in 2Q then, I think you kind of touched on that just now in your answer fully, but the upside that you saw this quarter, that was just a function of you kind of came into the quarter expecting to have to maybe incentivize a bit more heavily than you actually did on some of those homes that you sold and delivered in intra-quarter.
spk05: Yeah, exactly. And back to Hilo's answer on how we're guiding to the back half, we also picked up volume and leverage, which was significant. So along with the leverage and volume we picked up, because now we're closing, selling and closing more homes just in time, and then lower incentive utilization because the market was stronger in Q2, allowed us to produce the beat in Q2.
spk15: Got it. Okay, that's really helpful. Second question on community count growth, you know, really impressive acceleration there in the quarter. And I know that was an area that you were maybe a little bit more cautious on in the near terms, just given the pace of absorption and kind of the flow through of some of your more recent land buys. What's contributing, I guess, to the, I don't want to call it a pull forward, but the better than expected growth here in the near term, which sounds like you expect to continue in the back half of the year.
spk05: Yeah, I don't know if it's better than expected. I feel like it's been kind of coming sort of within one or two of what has been expected. That's why we sort of suggested growth was going to be somewhat choppy over this year. And then next year, we're expecting meaningful growth. And that's essentially what it's been. We opened up a few extra communities this year and maybe closed out a few less, not more than expected, but just what we were expecting. And that will continue. I think the next three quarters will continue to be choppy and then we'll see meaningful growth. But as we said from the very beginning, we expect community cap growth this year, which we will be achieving.
spk09: I think we share every quarter the new lots that we put under control and how many new communities that's going to generate. For the last several quarters, the number of communities that the land that we put under control will generate is more than the number of communities that we're closing. So as we start to lapse in those communities, become active, you're going to see that our pipeline of the lots that we have on book and under control are going to come on at a faster pace in the communities that are closing out, which, again, we had a pretty material growth this quarter to 71,000 lots under control. So I think that you're going to see that acceleration really take off in 2025.
spk05: Yeah, but we fully expect to go into next year spring selling season with more communities than we went into this spring selling season.
spk02: So that's the expectation. Great. Thanks a lot, guys. Appreciate it. Our next question comes from Michael Rehout with J.P.
spk00: Morgan. Please say your question.
spk06: Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to start off with focusing on the sales pace and You know, particularly, I think you kind of referenced the, obviously, the strategy that you have, broadly speaking, in terms of more effectively or more aggressively competing with the broader resale market as inventories normalize. And, you know, obviously, there's been a lot of talk around the increase in inventory levels in Florida and Texas. I was wondering if you could kind of share as, you know, those inventory levels have increased year to date. You know, how your various communities in those markets have performed, you know, if you've seen the broader market maybe soften slightly or require slightly higher incentives and, you know, how your communities have kind of, navigated, if any, challenges or modest softening, let's say, in either demand or price as a result of the change in inventory in those markets?
spk05: Sure. I mean, at this point, we're pretty optimistic about how we're doing there because, as you can look at our Q2 numbers, we produced really strong order growth. across all of our markets, including some of the markets that have been highlighted as softening. I don't think we're going to be immune to the market as resale market starts to return and becomes more competitive and therefore brings the market into balance. We'll have to navigate that just like every other builder, but we believe having move-in ready inventory will allow us to compete directly with that retail inventory and no longer will buyers have to make the compromise of new versus used is the idea. There are markets in Texas, there are markets in Florida that people have highlighted where existing home inventory is starting to return to something a little bit more normal. I think when you look at it collectively right now across new homes and existing homes, it's still it's still far from being normal, and therefore we're still able to achieve the market share we did. But because we can meet people on their move-in time with our move-in at the inventory, we saw strength all the way through Q2. April was good, May was good, and June was good. And we saw that across all of the markets. Certainly we have communities that were utilizing more incentives to acquire sales, They're not all in those locations. There's other reasons why we're using incentives. Maybe it's qualification issues, et cetera, et cetera. But as we sit here today, Michael, I can't tell you that the existing inventory is becoming a problem for us just yet.
spk09: I would add this is part of the reason why when Philippe mentioned on the gross margin components in the back half of the year, we're anticipating having to potentially offer some incremental incentives in some markets. As we've mentioned, we're a pace company. We're very, very focused on maintaining our four net sales per store on an annual basis. If we need to do more, we're prepared to do more. Currently, we're not seeing the need to do something materially greater than where we have been for the first half of the year. But if we need to in markets with higher inventory, we're prepared to do so.
spk05: Yeah. And I think our margin guide has an element of conservatism in it. We're expecting seasonality. We're going into the quarter with less backlog, and we're going into an election cycle. So we're being a little conservative right now, and we'll see how it goes.
spk06: Great, and I appreciate those comments, and I actually kind of bled in your comments right at the end, kind of segue into my second question. Just around... just trying to clarify and make sure we're crystal on, you know, incentive trends currently and what you're baking into the back half. And you kind of just said we are being conservative to some extent. So just want to make sure, you know, it's kind of clear that number one, you know, the incentive trends during 2Q, I believe you just said, Hila, but, you know, again, want to make sure we're fully on top of this, that incentive trends, I believe you just said, have remained or have been consistent throughout 2Q. In other words, you haven't seen an increase in incentives as you kind of exited the quarter, let's say. And if that's the case and you're kind of just building in an extra cushion in the back half, and that's why you said there's an element of conservatism there, any way to kind of ring fence If you're talking about a 200 basis points decline back half versus first half, how much of that might be related to being a little more conservative from the incentive front?
spk09: So, I think we've been on record many times in the past. There's about a hundred leverage component on volume typically from our best quarter to our, to our, our, you know, least, least strong quarter. So I think that a piece of that is just that right? When we're talking about the margin guidance, a piece is just a volume based leveraging component. The second part is exactly what you alluded to. So, during the quarter, our actual cost per home was less. We're able to obtain rate locks through a slightly different structure in the last couple of months that have really helped our cost per home to come down, but we are seeing folks ask for them more frequently. So our utilization is up a little bit while our cost per loan or cost per home is actually coming down. So back half of the year, again, we're in a really wacky election cycle. It's very unclear what's going to happen. I think some of our peer companies previously on this earnings cycle have said it's not so much that the buyer doesn't qualify. They're just real nervous right now. It's a nervous time to buy. So we're committed and ready. We have the firepower to offer incremental incentives and to a wider group of homebuyers if they need them. We don't know if they will or if they won't, but we're ready to offer it if they do to maintain our sales pace.
spk06: Okay, and just to be clear again, you haven't seen that level of incentives increase throughout the second quarter yet. And then if you're talking about 100 BIPs from volume deleveraging, you also mentioned geographic mix, so maybe the incentive is a 50 to 75 BIP type of cushion. Is that fair to say?
spk09: Yeah, we're not going to give specific numbers, but I don't think your mountain's too far off.
spk02: Great. Thank you.
spk00: Our next question comes from Stephen Kim with Evercore ISI. Please state your question.
spk11: Yeah, thanks very much, guys. Appreciate all the color so far and the heavy lifting on the gross margins that Mike just did. I think my question, I wanted to shift here to the backlog turnover ratio and overall just your rate of velocity from your backlog into your actual revenues. You're moving to a 60-day trend. kind of between sale and delivery kind of a structure across the board, that would imply about 150% backlog turnover ratio. You've sort of been running in the high 130s. I just want to make sure that we understand if you fully implement your strategy and it's humming along at some point, let's say next year, is it right to think that we should be incorporating in our modeling a backlog turnover ratio about 150, or are there going to be markets – which are deliberately kind of permanently going to be not doing that 60-day kind of strategy?
spk05: Yeah, no, you're spot on. I think over time as we get all of our communities and markets and operations pivoted to a 60-day move-in ready inventory model and cycle times remain where they are, 150% is within reach on a quarter by quarter basis. That's how the math works.
spk09: Yeah, I don't know if I'd model that for January 1, 2025, but that's definitely an evolution we expect over the next four, five, six quarters to have more clarity on how quickly we can get to that number, but that is the target.
spk11: Yeah, I appreciate that. That's really helpful. And I also appreciated your comment about the normalization of the resale inventory. We're not there yet. I mean, nationally, we're still at 3.8 months. Normal, it seems to be, you know, like five to six. So... Is it fair to say, as you look across your markets, that there are one or two markets maybe where you're at or above that normal level of like six months, but by and large, the vast majority of your markets are still nowhere near that? Is that a fair assessment?
spk05: Yeah, that's fair. And again, we don't really operate at the MSA level. We operate at sub-market levels. We buy land in sub-markets where housing dynamics are stable. So when you look at it across an MSA, I think it can be misleading. There are certain tertiary submarkets that are more impacted, maybe infield submarkets, different price points. So on a submarket by submarket level, it's a very small percent of submarkets where we're seeing existing home inventory become relevant in any way.
spk11: Yeah, that's what I would have thought. Last one from me, I just forgot to ask about build to rent. I know that this is something that we're starting to hear people talk a little bit more about. Can you just share again your thoughts regarding the build to rent market and what their level of interest is in getting involved there?
spk09: Yeah, you know, it's a choppy market, although I agree with you there has been some more interest. We're seeing our engagement with the BFR operators shift to more community levels versus one-off homes here and there to kind of close out a subdivision. So we are seeing them reengage a couple folks that we hadn't heard from in a while are jumping back in. So there is, you know, kind of that mid-single-digit total volume that we're targeting and we're pretty much dead on right now.
spk11: Okay, perfect. Thanks so much, guys. Thank you.
spk00: Our next question comes from John Lavallo with UBS. Please state your question.
spk14: Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. So, you know, it sounds like everything is pretty good out there and fairly positive. But your implied second half EPS is actually coming down, you know, by about a dollar from, call it, you know, 10 bucks to 9 bucks. So I'm curious what's driving that. I mean, it seems like there's nothing that's worse today than it was in May. So maybe you could help us understand that.
spk05: It's just the timing of closings. We haven't made any assumption changes in the back half of the year. All we've done is the timing of closings have been pulled into Q1 and Q2.
spk09: I'm going to deep dive that just a tiny bit, John. So basically, when we came into Q4, we guided to 14,000 to 15,000 units. Then we brought up our guidance 14,500 to 15,500, and then we brought up our guidance again this quarter. So we actually see the year developing better than we expected every time we talk to you, which is really great news. The kind of benefit that we're seeing from our strategic evolution is that we're just able to close more of those sales faster. So we've just moved the timing of some of those closings. There is no degradation in what we're expecting for sales volumes. We actually increased our expectation For total full year sales, so it's really just the fact that we were able to execute on exactly what Steven talked about our backlog conversion. Those benefits came in a little bit earlier than we had initially expected. So we're able to close our backlog in earlier quarters, but the total sales volume for the year is actually improving in the last 2 quarters. Not not not deteriorating. So we were able to harvest some of those profits earlier in the year.
spk14: Yeah, okay, understood. And then, you know, you guys have talked about starting the number of homes in a particular quarter that you believe you can sell in the following quarter. Starts in the second quarter, ramped to, I think, 4,319 from 4,142 in the first quarter. So, I mean, is it fair to assume that you're expecting a sequential improvement in orders in the third quarter?
spk05: No. I think that we're – there's a couple things, right? We have community count growth. So we're ramping up starts to marry our community count growth. And usually in new communities, we tend to ramp up specs more so we can get started. And then we're carrying more specs to finish because we want to have move-in ready inventory. So that's really driving the increase in the starts versus our expectation that Q3 and Q4 are going to be stronger than Q1 and Q2. That would be That would be unusual. It's a combination of community account growth and it's a combination of trying to get all of our communities to a point where we have move-in ready inventory.
spk09: Also, we're not this good. 4,300 and a little over 4,100 feel like kind of the same, to be honest. You know, we make starts decisions, you know, months in advance. So we actually thought that was a pretty good match. You know, over time we'll probably get closer, but that didn't feel that far apart.
spk02: Okay, that's helpful, guys. Thank you.
spk00: You're welcome. Our next question comes from Carl Reichart with BTIG. Please state your question.
spk12: Thanks. Morning, everybody. I wanted to ask about operating cash flow, Hila. Do you have some expectations you could share with us about 2024? And then, in addition, you know, given the model you're operating, your OCF has been much more consistent quarter-to-quarter, less seasonal than a lot of the folks that we cover today. I'm curious if you've got a target in mind in terms of conversion of net income to cash flow or vice versa, either way, where more, as you continue to run your inventory faster, more of your net income converts to operating cash flow or free cash flow.
spk09: Yeah, I think that's a good way to look at it. I think we tried to introduce this concept on our last call. We kind of look at our inventory in two different categories. Our whip, our sticks and bricks, is turning much, much faster. both from the improved cycle time and the way that we're shifting in our strategy. So you're seeing that cash conversion happen very, very quickly. The same time we're also growing. So our land investment is increasing, which obviously, as you know, it takes about two years to come to market. So that piece of our balance sheet is growing. We're improving that with the off-balance sheet piece. We haven't really talked about it yet on Q&A, but it's pretty material growth in off-balance sheet utilization this quarter. So we're getting that cash benefit on our balance sheet. So overall, I think we're comfortable holding and will want to continue to hold a very large cash balance consistent with the other builders. I think we were all a little gun-shy during rough times in the cycle over the last 15 years. We're going to have a big war chest of cash, same as everybody else. So you're not going to see us materially pulling back on the cash balance that we have today, which pretty much means we're redeploying what we're generating back into the business and to give it in and share repurchases. We're probably not going something materially beyond that, which means that we're going to have to utilize off-balancing financing to get to the numbers that we need to on our land spend.
spk12: Okay. I just wanted to see if you could give us a sense as to what OCF might be for 24. So I'll leave that. But I did want to add one other element here. So the land that you're looking at now, my sense is you want to continue to invest in the markets where you've already got a deep presence because you want to build your share there. But as you're starting to look out a couple of years on the acquisitions you're making in the land market now, can we think about the potential that you begin to expand into some new areas, or should we expect that you're going to continue to focus on the key markets that you're operating in now? Thanks.
spk05: Yeah, appreciate the question. as we think about going from where we are to 20 000 units it really works this way i think we can grow first and foremost market share in the markets we're already in our goal is now to be a top three builder in every market that we're in um we also have entered four new markets in the last i guess four years or so charleston myrtle beach jacksonville and salt lake city so we're getting those up to scale so that that's a big uh big focus of ours And then there are a handful of secondary markets in the south, Texas and Florida that we're looking at that are also part of that plan. So that's kind of the hierarchy of our priorities as we work to 20,000 units.
spk02: Thanks, Philip. Thanks, Sheila.
spk00: Our next question comes from Susan McClary with Goldman Sachs. Please state your question.
spk01: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Your cancellation rate has been running in that high single, low double-digit range, which, as you mentioned, is really below that mid-teens historical norm. As you think about the new strategy that you're putting in place, should we expect that that can continue to come down? Does this feel like a more normalized level going forward? Just any commentary on how that's coming together and how we should think about the trajectory there as the full implementation of the strategy comes through?
spk05: Yeah, thanks for the question. It's definitely something that we're studying very carefully. We obviously believe hypothetically that if we're selling 60-day move-in homes, buyers are pretty committed at that point. You know, they're picking out their furniture at that point. So we feel like our cancellation rate should run lower than folks that aren't selling 60-day move-in ready homes. So long-term, structurally, we believe our cancellation rate could move down meaningfully from where it has historically. But we still need to study that carefully. Certainly in Q2, we saw a really strong metric and believe that that could be sustainable.
spk01: Okay. And then you saw some nice leverage on the SG&A line this quarter. As you think about the back half and the seasonality in the business, just any thoughts on where that can go over the next couple of quarters and how should we think about some of the investments that will be required around the strategy relative to the leverage that you can achieve?
spk09: Yeah, great question. Thank you, Susan. So most of our committed capital to execute on the strategy is already in place. So you shouldn't see a big increase in SG&A commitments related to the strategy rollout. We've been rolling it out behind the scenes for about 12 to 18 months. As far as leveraging, as we said, if we're going to have a lower revenue and lower units in the back half of the year, there'll be some pullback in leveraging, although we continue to refine our cost structure, and we expect to be able to be under for the full year this year versus last year, and we have a target of 9.5% SG&A leverage longer term. So, maybe a little bit of an increase in the back half of the year, but we're still going to come in under our prior guidance, which is 10% or better.
spk01: Okay. Thanks for the color, and good luck with everything.
spk00: Our next question comes from Alex Barron with Housing Research Center. Please say your question.
spk13: Thank you. Good morning. I wanted to ask, you know, assuming the Fed starts to cut rates later this year, how are you guys in assuming rates start to move towards 6% or lower over the course of next year? How do you guys envision your approach to incentives? Do you feel like you would reduce the incentives to boost margins or you would maintain high incentives to boost the sales pace, you know, by offering even lower interest rates?
spk05: I think lower rates can only be good for our business and for the housing sector in general. I know people are concerned about lower rates and the impact they'll have on existing home inventory, but I think it's only a good thing. It'll help inventory turnover and those folks need to find a home, et cetera, et cetera. And I also think it should help with incentives, clearly. Right now we're utilizing incentives to basically need a payment for our buyers. That's what the dollars are being used for. And I think as rates go lower, we'll use less of those. And because we are a move-in ready builder, there's not a lot of other incentives we need to offer. We don't do options or design centers or lot premiums. The price of the home is the price of the home. And so I think lower rates will have nothing but a positive impact on our incentives for marriage homes.
spk09: Alex, if we wanted to pull that trigger, we can use it in any way that we can. As Salif said, it's only going to be a benefit. if we choose to continue to press on the gas and increase the sales pace, the cost of the incentive will be less, right? Buying someone down into something with a four in front of it from almost seven is much more expensive than buying them down to something with a four in it from a six. It's still a material improvement over what they can get from, you know, in the retail market or from their local bank, but the cost to us, would be a lot less, obviously, for that 100-bip spread. So I think that there's opportunities. Every homebuyer has their own story, and we have an arsenal of tools that we can use to make sure that we're getting them into the home but optimizing our margins at the same time.
spk13: Yeah, because it would seem, you know, if you were to offer lower rates, say, in the fours or even in the threes as time goes by, that you could get a big edge over others who you would probably not do that. My other question had to do with, you mentioned maybe your next target is to go to 20,000 units. Over what timeframe would that happen or do you guys have like an annual growth rate that you're trying to hit over the next few years?
spk05: Yeah. Some of that will just be dictated by sort of reading the markets and our ability to secure land. at the right price that underwrites. But even with those factors in mind, we believe we can grow 10% year over year. So that's the minimum, right? If we can do more than that, we will. And so when you think about that, I think you're looking at a three to four year timeline.
spk02: Got it.
spk13: All right. Well, best of luck.
spk02: Thank you. Thank you.
spk00: Our next question comes from Ken Zenner with Seaport Research Partners. Please state your question.
spk02: Good morning, everybody. Good morning.
spk03: Just a two-part question first. When do you think, given your planning, you're going to see starts match the order pace, given your rollout?
spk02: Well, they're pretty close.
spk05: We have a little room to go, but we're pretty close. But we're also going to see meaningful community count growth over the next six quarters. So for new communities, it won't match exactly quarter by quarter until we get those up and running. But other than that, that should be the only delta. So like Hila said, I don't know if January 1 is the cutoff date. We still have some communities and divisions that were getting situated here as we roll out the strategy. But as we move into next year, that should be what they should match other than community town growth.
spk03: Okay. And so just so we can understand the progression of your increased land banking given your growth, can you talk to the mix of finished acquired lots and this quarter so you know if you bought 100 lots or 30 percent of them finished given they owned the lot could be either raw or finished um and then as well what's that been kind of as a percent of sales so closings from lots you acquired finished just trying to understand that dynamic as you uh change your approach yeah we can follow up with you on this uh later i don't think we have those metrics in front of us but
spk05: I think what you're asking us is as we start to land bank more, are we going to be buying just-in-time finished lots from that land bank?
spk04: Is that the spirit of your question?
spk03: It is a piece of it. And that's actually, maybe you could clarify, when you're doing the land banking, are you having the banks, Are you buying raw land from them? I assumed you were implying you'd be buying finished lots. Maybe just that clarification.
spk05: Yeah, so there's lots of different land banking structures out there. We've been running closer to 30% for a while because most of the land banking that we've done is with land sellers. And that type of land banking is you take phase takedowns from a farmer or somebody else. Over time, and you buy lots when you're ready to put a shovel in the ground and start developing, and it helps us keep some of the land off balance sheet and land bank. There are also traditional land banking structures out there that are true land bankers who come in and buy the land, pay for the development, and then roll you finished lots. We haven't done a lot of those but are starting to ramp that up. Over time, that piece of it will provide finished lots. As it relates to the market, there aren't a lot of finish lots out there, so we're not finding a lot of finish lot deals. I think over 98% of our land is self-developed.
spk02: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
spk00: Thank you. And our next question comes from Jay McCandless with WebBush Securities. Please state your questions.
spk10: Thanks for taking my questions. The first question I had with this new strategy and trying to sell within that 60-day window, is there going to be a lag as you're opening these new communities until you can actually start selling homes just based on that 120-day cycle time you were talking about? It seems like you're going to have to get some of these homes built before you can actually open the communities. Is that the right way to think about it?
spk05: The right way to think about it is if we were pivoting. I mean, every land and community growth schedule we have now built that into our plan already, and we've been layering that in for over a year. We've been 100% spec builder for a while, so all we're doing now is carrying those specs 30 more days or so. So we're building those into our community schedules, we're building those into our forecasting, and we're building those into our underwriting when we actually buy land that we know when we open up our Communities we need to open up with with ready inventory to say another way.
spk09: Most people don't open up communities without any inventory kind of ready to go because it's a new community and people want to see it. Right? So, typically, when you open up a new community, at least if you're a spec builder, whether you're a 60 day, move in or not, you have inventory ready. So, as we mentioned, you're already in the construction cycle. So, maybe you're just a little bit further along and our 60 day commitment, but it's not too different than how we've been operating.
spk10: Okay. And then in terms of the gross margin impact from some of the extras you guys talked about in the annual study, the blinds, garage code, et cetera, do you have an average so far of what gross margin impact those extras are going to put on the house?
spk09: You know, we were conservative, and we thought that they would be break-even. We didn't know that we had the opportunity to increase prices. We thought we were going to put this stuff in the house because we It aligned with our strategy, and we were going to kind of charge cost for it, but we've actually been able to earn a nice margin on it. So I would say worst case, it's neutral. Best case, maybe it's adding like five bips, but we are actually seeing a profit component on that move-in ready package. We probably underestimated the desirability of that package in the marketplace.
spk10: Okay. And then the last one for me, could you benchmark where you are in terms of rolling this out? Is it 60% of the count, 70% of the count, any type of frame of reference for where you are in the rollout?
spk05: Yeah, there's a lot of different tenants, right, where when it comes to move-in ready, we're 80% when it comes to having turnkey homes. it's a little bit further and then when the realtor relationship piece we're still figuring out. So we expect to have this fully implemented next year. That's the timeline we're on as we sit here today.
spk02: Okay, great. Thanks for taking my questions. Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. There's no further questions at this time. I'll hand the floor back to Philippe Lord for closing remarks.
spk05: Thank you, Operator. I'd like to thank everyone who joined this call today for your continued interest in Marist Homes. We hope you have a great rest of the day and a great weekend. Thank you.
spk00: This concludes today's call. All parties may disconnect. Have a great day.
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